TicketsSept. 11, 2009
This is the sixth in a series of installments from UC head baseball coach Brian Cleary as he travels overseas to coach the British National Baseball Team at the 2009 Baseball World Cup.
We had a very tough loss to Nicaragua this morning. They beat us 10-0 and had seven runs quickly as a result of some home runs. We did not pitch well early in the game. However, they are a very good team, especially at the plate. Their hitters are aggressive and free swinging and they have power throughout their lineup. Their pitcher was a veteran and we could not get anything going against him. They are an older, very experienced team.
Of the five pools, the top two teams from each pool advance and four of the five third place teams advance. With where we now sit, we must now beat Croatia tomorrow and have some other games go our way to survive what is a complicated tiebreaker system with the other third place finishers. Our ace, Brian Essery, will start the game and we have two of our other top pitchers available in relief (Tom Boleska, a pitcher currently in the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league system and Stephen Spragg, who currently pitches professionally in Holland).
Brian Essery is an interesting guy as well as a good pitcher. He works full-time as a police officer in his hometown of Niagara Falls, Canada and is a married father of three. He played both collegiately and professionally in the United States and is thirty-five years old although in tremendous shape. He had a very important win against Spain at the 2007 European Championships and is experienced, so we all feel good with him on the mound in such an important game.
There is rain here now which may affect the Japan/Croatia game this afternoon and the forecast is calling for rain tomorrow, which has our group anxious about not being able to decide our ability to advance on the field. Not much we can do, but the logistics of getting the team from Croatia to Parma, Italy or Amsterdam, Holland on about 12 hours notice are complicated. We will take a charter flight on Sunday morning to one of those sites and then play Sunday afternoon should we make it out of our pool here in Croatia. The logistics of getting everyone from here to their homes should we not advance is even more overwhelming, so I have tried not to think about it.
I went for a run in the rain with the rest of the coaching staff through the center of town upon returning from the stadium and we are supposed to eat dinner there tonight. It really is a beautiful city - more so than I expected and I have enjoyed seeing another part of the world.
I may or may not be able to update after tomorrow's game, but will again as soon as possible.